Success

SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.

First print Life I, 1
Johnson 67 | Franklin 112

■→IN POLISH

Text compared with the fascicle and prepared for publication by Teresa Pelka, available under any of the following licenses:
■Creative Commons License 4.0, BY-SA 3.0, and License 2.5.

■→Poems, first print by Higginson and Todd, page 13;
Thematic arrangement into one stanza.

■Notes for Emily Dickinson’s poetry;
Poems one-by-one print and fascicle comparison,
■Resource for Emily Dickinson’s poetry;
■Google Drive, manuscript fascicles.